WEBVTT NOTE Authors Forum: Hamilton's Curse 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.000 Well, my book, Hamilton's Curse, that's not it, explains the current economic crisis. 2 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:18.000 I wrote a book on Alexander Hamilton. My publicist at Random House wrote a great press release in October when it came out saying, 3 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:27.000 this is the book that explains the origins of the current economic crisis, and it was apparently written so well it was intriguing to NBC News 4 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:31.800 How can a book on Alexander Hamilton explain what's going on? 5 00:00:31.800 --> 00:00:38.760 And so they invited me on MSNBC, the Morning Joe show, and sat me down next to Pat Buchanan, 6 00:00:38.760 --> 00:00:42.080 and the first thing he says is, Alexander Hamilton is my hero. 7 00:00:42.080 --> 00:00:49.720 And so I'm supposed to explain my book, Trashing Alexander Hamilton, and so he let me speak 8 00:00:49.720 --> 00:00:54.040 for about ten seconds, and then it became a shouting match, and the three of them shouted 9 00:00:54.040 --> 00:00:55.040 me down. 10 00:00:55.040 --> 00:01:03.040 So, it's on the web, but you can't understand what the heck the book is about if you were to watch it because of that. 11 00:01:03.040 --> 00:01:13.040 So, I just gave up, but I did get one final word in, and I told them at least Aaron Burr had a good reason for shooting someone, unlike Dick Cheney. 12 00:01:13.040 --> 00:01:20.040 And that made it onto NBC News. 13 00:01:20.040 --> 00:01:34.040 So in the short time I have, I thought I'd ask or answer two questions. One, is there a Hamilton cult in America? And then a second question, what is Hamiltonianism anyway? 14 00:01:34.040 --> 00:01:45.040 There is a bit of a Hamiltonian cult. It's not as big and powerful as the Lincoln cult, which has been on display in the past month of Lincoln's 200th birthday. 15 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:50.440 But I just have some quotes from some of the people that I quote in my book that illustrate 16 00:01:50.440 --> 00:01:54.240 that there is sort of a cult-like behavior behind Alexander Hamilton. 17 00:01:54.240 --> 00:01:58.480 My friend Clyde Wilson told me that when he visited friends in New York City about 20 18 00:01:58.480 --> 00:02:03.480 years ago, they took him to this 300-year-old church where Hamilton is buried and there 19 00:02:03.480 --> 00:02:07.480 were flowers on the grave and he said the Wall Street people put fresh flowers on his 20 00:02:07.480 --> 00:02:10.000 grave every week. 21 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:12.920 So they certainly revere Hamilton. 22 00:02:12.920 --> 00:02:17.640 Well, here's his most famous biographer these days is Ron Chernow. He said this, 23 00:02:17.640 --> 00:02:24.200 Hamilton is the prophet of the capitalist revolution in America, end quote. And of course, that is dead wrong. 24 00:02:24.200 --> 00:02:29.800 He was not a capitalist. He was a mercantilist. He should be better be called the prophet of 25 00:02:29.800 --> 00:02:35.160 mercantilism in America. David Brooks, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, 26 00:02:35.160 --> 00:02:43.320 neoconservative author said this, Hamilton created capitalism. One guy created capitalism. 27 00:02:44.120 --> 00:02:50.040 Forrest MacDonald says, Hamilton is responsible for America becoming the richest, most powerful 28 00:02:50.040 --> 00:02:57.480 and freest nation in the history of the world. Again, one guy. This is what what Pat Buchanan 29 00:02:57.480 --> 00:03:02.440 actually said to me was, how can you criticize Hamilton? He's the architect of the American 30 00:03:02.440 --> 00:03:07.960 and Economy." That's a quote. So again, there's this idea that there was one man, sort of 31 00:03:07.960 --> 00:03:15.040 like the Wizard of Oz, behind a curtain, the architect of the whole economy. There's a 32 00:03:15.040 --> 00:03:23.400 museum, New York Historical Society had a book published and they had a display entitled 33 00:03:23.400 --> 00:03:28.560 Alexander Hamilton, The Man Who Made America. So again, there's this idea that there was 34 00:03:28.560 --> 00:03:53.560 Hamilton is a founder of a great Republican empire that explored the outer reaches of space, welcomed millions of immigrants, led the effort to defeat fascism and communism, produced countless technological advances, and abolished slavery and Jim Crow. 35 00:03:53.560 --> 00:04:06.560 So, all one guy is responsible for all that. He didn't mention any of the bad things that the American government has done over the years that Hamilton is supposedly the creator of, just these things. 36 00:04:06.560 --> 00:04:21.560 David Brooks and William Crystal, when they announced what national greatness conservatism was, which is on display today in Iraq, among other places, this was a 1997 Wall Street Journal article, they said this, 37 00:04:21.560 --> 00:04:26.840 this, conservatives need to reinvigorate the nationalism of Alexander Hamilton and Henry 38 00:04:26.840 --> 00:04:32.340 Clay and Teddy Roosevelt. So the neocons think of themselves as sort of the political heirs 39 00:04:32.340 --> 00:04:41.240 of Hamilton. Michael Lind, another, I guess he called him a liberal slash neoconservative. 40 00:04:41.240 --> 00:04:46.040 Most of the great American statesmen have been nationalists in the Hamiltonian tradition. 41 00:04:46.040 --> 00:04:52.140 In the Civil War, Hamiltonian defenders of national unity dealt a crushing blow to Jeffersonian 42 00:04:52.140 --> 00:04:56.120 champions of states' rights." 43 00:04:56.120 --> 00:05:01.760 George Will said in one of his columns, Americans honor Jefferson that we live in Hamilton's 44 00:05:01.760 --> 00:05:02.760 country. 45 00:05:02.760 --> 00:05:06.520 And that's certainly true, I argue in my book. 46 00:05:06.520 --> 00:05:12.280 The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., which is the oldest so-called think tank in 47 00:05:12.280 --> 00:05:16.000 Washington, they have something called the Hamilton Project. 48 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:21.640 It's a big, long series of proposals for economic intervention of all kinds, and naturally it's 49 00:05:21.640 --> 00:05:23.720 called the Hamilton Project. 50 00:05:23.720 --> 00:05:30.280 And it's financed by Wall Street banksters, including Rubin, Clinton's former Treasury 51 00:05:30.280 --> 00:05:33.680 Secretary, Hamilton Project. 52 00:05:33.680 --> 00:05:39.600 When the first bailout occurred, when Bush was still president, Forbes.com got out there 53 00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:45.400 and defended the bailout right away, as did the Wall Street Journal in a few articles. 54 00:05:45.400 --> 00:05:52.160 And one of the articles in Forbes.com was entitled, Ron Paul versus Alexander Hamilton. 55 00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:58.200 The bailout plan is conservative and constitutional by someone named Jerry Bauer. 56 00:05:58.200 --> 00:06:06.880 And so since Ron Paul is a Jeffersonian, and proudly so, this guy was saying, don't believe 57 00:06:06.880 --> 00:06:12.560 either Jefferson or Ron Paul that the bailout is a bad idea, it's a good idea, Hamilton 58 00:06:12.560 --> 00:06:13.560 would approve. 59 00:06:13.560 --> 00:06:20.200 Then in the Wall Street Journal, John Steele Gordon came out and blamed the whole economic 60 00:06:20.200 --> 00:06:24.320 mess on Thomas Jefferson. 61 00:06:24.320 --> 00:06:26.960 Not Alan Greenspan, Thomas Jefferson. 62 00:06:26.960 --> 00:06:27.960 Here's what he says. 63 00:06:27.960 --> 00:06:33.200 How could the richest and most productive economy in the world, as ever known, have a financial 64 00:06:33.200 --> 00:06:37.740 system so prone to periodic and catastrophic breakdown? 65 00:06:37.740 --> 00:06:43.740 The second answer is the baleful influence of Thomas Jefferson. 66 00:06:43.740 --> 00:06:46.740 This is October 10th, 2008, Wall Street Journal. 67 00:06:46.740 --> 00:06:51.900 To Jefferson, the concept of central banking, Hamilton's idea, was what today might be 68 00:06:51.900 --> 00:06:54.300 called a giveaway to the rich. 69 00:06:54.300 --> 00:06:58.740 And so he makes the case that the reason for the current crisis is that the Fed is not 70 00:06:58.740 --> 00:06:59.740 powerful enough. 71 00:06:59.740 --> 00:07:02.220 We need a more powerful Fed. 72 00:07:02.220 --> 00:07:06.220 And there are too many government agencies that regulate financial markets. 73 00:07:06.220 --> 00:07:29.220 We need one super regulator. And Bernanke was sort of making a case for that two days ago in a speech in front of the Council of Foreign Relations that I caught on the Faux News Channel, and he is arguing for a systemic risk authority, a new central planning authority that will regulate all risk-taking in America. 74 00:07:29.220 --> 00:07:59.220 And so this is just a few examples of anything from the Wall Street Journal to Forbes to political scientists and academe saying these things about, to Patrick Cannon saying these things about Hamilton and it really is a cult-like following and the second question I have is well what is Hamiltonianism? What are Hamilton's core ideas that all these pretty influential people, William Crystal, David Brooks, Patrick Cannon, George Will revere so much 75 00:07:59.220 --> 00:08:10.220 I'll just put on a list. Well, he was the founding father of American nationalism, as far as I'm concerned, and Clyde Wilson defends nationalism as this, 76 00:08:10.220 --> 00:08:17.220 the unhealthy love of one's government, accompanied by the aggressive desire to put down others. That's nationalism. 77 00:08:17.220 --> 00:08:25.220 Patriotism, on the other hand, according to Wilson, is the wholesome, constructive love of one's land and people, different than nationalism. 78 00:08:25.220 --> 00:08:30.980 Hamilton wanted a foreign policy that would pursue, in his words, imperial glory. 79 00:08:30.980 --> 00:08:36.500 Quote the historian Clinton Rossiter from Cornell, the late Clinton Rossiter, is saying, 80 00:08:36.500 --> 00:08:40.500 Hamilton's overriding purpose was to build the foundation of a new empire. 81 00:08:40.500 --> 00:08:44.020 As you can see why Jefferson didn't like him very much. 82 00:08:44.020 --> 00:08:50.420 He thought that Jefferson thought the role of government was the protection of life, liberty and property and not to create an empire. 83 00:08:50.420 --> 00:08:56.820 He proposed, Hamilton proposed, a king-like chief executive at the Constitutional Convention 84 00:08:56.820 --> 00:09:02.980 and the effective abolition of states' rights or federalism, and of course we achieved that. 85 00:09:02.980 --> 00:09:05.060 Hamilton philosophically was a Jacobin. 86 00:09:05.060 --> 00:09:10.180 He was constantly imploring anyone who would listen to give limitless powers to the central 87 00:09:10.180 --> 00:09:15.340 state, assuming that wise men like himself would use that power in the public interest. 88 00:09:15.340 --> 00:09:27.540 I quote Rossiter again. Rossiter went through Hamilton's speeches and writings and came up with about a hundred different phrases that Hamilton used for the public interest. 89 00:09:27.540 --> 00:09:37.540 He was always making the argument that we need to expand the state in the public interest, the national interest, the community interest, his very creative use of language. 90 00:09:37.540 --> 00:09:41.140 Hamilton was the founding father of constitutional subversion. 91 00:09:41.140 --> 00:09:45.420 He literally invented the notion of implied powers and a living constitution. 92 00:09:45.420 --> 00:09:52.100 He did this in his statement on the constitutionality of a central bank, which he wrote for George 93 00:09:52.100 --> 00:09:58.740 Washington, where he essentially said that, well, yes, the Constitutional Convention considered 94 00:09:58.740 --> 00:10:03.500 a central bank a national bank, but rejected it, but you need to read between the lines 95 00:10:03.500 --> 00:10:04.500 of the Constitution. 96 00:10:04.500 --> 00:10:10.420 If you read between the lines, there is room for a bank run by politicians out of a nation's 97 00:10:10.420 --> 00:10:16.020 Jefferson's view was essentially that there's blank space between the lines, that there's nothing in there. 98 00:10:16.020 --> 00:10:25.520 But Hamilton argued that the necessary and proper clause of the Constitution allows for a bank. 99 00:10:25.520 --> 00:10:29.620 Jefferson came back and said, well, what you're saying is it's convenient. 100 00:10:29.620 --> 00:10:33.020 It would be convenient to have a government-run bank to deposit tax revenues in. 101 00:10:33.020 --> 00:10:35.220 That's not necessary because we have banks. 102 00:10:35.220 --> 00:10:37.020 There are banks everywhere. 103 00:10:37.020 --> 00:10:38.520 You need a government-run bank. 104 00:10:38.520 --> 00:10:45.360 But Hamilton won the argument sort of because George Washington did go along with the creation of the First Bank of the United States, 105 00:10:45.360 --> 00:10:54.600 but the way in which he won the argument is George Washington wanted the District of Columbia to border his property in Virginia. 106 00:10:54.600 --> 00:11:01.840 And so the deal was George Washington went along with the creation of the First Bank of the United States, precursor of the Fed, 107 00:11:01.840 --> 00:11:08.240 if when they moved the nation's capital to what is now Washington, D.C., it would be adjacent to Mount Vernon. 108 00:11:08.240 --> 00:11:12.200 and so that was the political deal he signed off on the Bank of the United States. 109 00:11:12.200 --> 00:11:16.160 Hamilton invented the notion of implied war powers. 110 00:11:16.160 --> 00:11:20.520 He advocated a standing army, and I'm convinced, I make the argument in my book, is the reason 111 00:11:20.520 --> 00:11:25.080 he wanted a standing army, which Jefferson did not, was he wanted a standing army of 112 00:11:25.080 --> 00:11:30.720 tax collectors to intimidate Americans, not to defend against foreign invaders, and he 113 00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:37.800 proved that to me by leading 15,000 troops with George Washington in the Whiskey Rebellion 114 00:11:37.800 --> 00:11:44.920 into Pennsylvania to put down a tax revolt. That was a standing army of conscripts. The 115 00:11:44.920 --> 00:11:50.480 soldiers were conscripts, the officers were mostly affluent bondholders, government bondholders 116 00:11:50.480 --> 00:11:54.480 from the Eastern Seaboard who wanted to make sure there was enough money in the treasury 117 00:11:54.480 --> 00:12:00.080 through the whiskey tax, among other things, to pay off their bonds. And so I'm convinced 118 00:12:00.080 --> 00:12:04.880 that that's why he wanted a standing army, he wanted a standing army of tax collectors. 119 00:12:04.880 --> 00:12:10.000 He provided the original intellectual argument for a large national debt. 120 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:14.200 John Steele Gordon, who I mentioned before, wrote a book called Hamilton's Blessing. 121 00:12:14.200 --> 00:12:18.520 Hamilton argued that a large national debt would be a public blessing. 122 00:12:18.520 --> 00:12:22.040 And the reason he gave for this was that it would enable the government to grow much larger 123 00:12:22.040 --> 00:12:25.380 than what the Constitution allowed for. 124 00:12:25.380 --> 00:12:30.560 He was Machiavellian in this argument and he said that it would tie the wealthy people 125 00:12:30.560 --> 00:12:34.340 of the country to the government because they would be the bondholders and they would therefore 126 00:12:34.340 --> 00:12:45.100 Jefferson was right. Just as we tie the poor people today to the state, he wanted to tie 127 00:12:45.100 --> 00:12:50.940 the wealthy. That worked for a long time. That was the basis of the Whig Party and the 128 00:12:50.940 --> 00:12:56.700 Republican Party in the 19th century. He despised men like Jefferson, who he said, quote, has 129 00:12:56.700 --> 00:13:03.400 an excessive concern for liberty, end quote. After Jefferson gave his first inaugural address 130 00:13:03.400 --> 00:13:19.560 Hamilton's speech was denounced by Hamilton as the symptom of a pygmy mind, as a Fed publication 131 00:13:19.560 --> 00:13:24.720 called A History of Central Banking in America that boasts that Hamilton was the founding 132 00:13:24.720 --> 00:13:28.040 father of central banking in America. 133 00:13:28.040 --> 00:13:32.320 It even says that he sounded like a modern Fed chairman, and I was telling someone this 134 00:13:32.320 --> 00:13:37.720 This morning I tell some of my students that Greenspan always sounded to me like my old 135 00:13:37.720 --> 00:13:44.360 uncle with Alzheimer's, crazy sounding, congressional speeches he would make, and I would read some 136 00:13:44.360 --> 00:13:48.040 of them, bring them into class and read their Greenspan's comments, and it's like you're 137 00:13:48.040 --> 00:13:53.080 on and on and on and nothing, no two sentences are connected, and so yeah, Hamilton did talk 138 00:13:53.080 --> 00:13:54.080 like that. 139 00:13:54.080 --> 00:13:57.040 I've read all of his reports and speeches. 140 00:13:57.040 --> 00:14:01.280 It was Hamilton who invented the big lie that the states were never sovereign and that the 141 00:14:01.280 --> 00:14:05.000 The Constitution was somehow created by the whole people of the United States. 142 00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:08.040 He invented that argument out of thin air. 143 00:14:08.040 --> 00:14:12.640 And here's what Clinton Rosser says about Hamilton and the Constitution. 144 00:14:12.640 --> 00:14:17.400 The principles of nationalism and broad construction expounded by Hamilton and his disciples have 145 00:14:17.400 --> 00:14:19.940 long monopolized constitutional law. 146 00:14:19.940 --> 00:14:25.560 The formula for congressional authority today, this is back in the 1960s he's writing, the 147 00:14:25.560 --> 00:14:30.760 formula for congressional authority reads commerce power plus the war powers plus the 148 00:14:30.760 --> 00:14:38.760 the power to tax and spend for the general welfare times the loosest possible reading of the words necessary and proper. 149 00:14:38.760 --> 00:14:47.760 And I quote him also as saying he really provided the roadmap for generations of lawyers to twist the words of the Constitution 150 00:14:47.760 --> 00:14:54.760 because Hamilton's view of the Constitution was that, properly interpreted, it could be a potential rubber stamp for unlimited government. 151 00:14:54.760 --> 00:14:59.760 Just the opposite of Jefferson's view that it could be something that would constrain government. 152 00:14:59.760 --> 00:15:29.760 and so he was also the founding father of crony capitalism I have 30 seconds left I'll quote William Graham Sumner who wrote a great biography of Hamilton which is online he said Hamilton naturally could not consent to a policy which would have dictated to him to hold his rash hands when his whole being was in a quiver to seize that which he thought was going wrong and a press upon it at once and with unshrinking reliance on his own judgment input so he was sort of an early 153 00:15:29.760 --> 00:15:34.080 Day, Barack Obama, in that regard, in order to regulate and control all human behavior. 154 00:15:34.080 --> 00:15:35.280 Thank you very much.